Introducing Measurement Lab — When an Internet application doesn't work as expected or your connection seems flaky, how can you tell whether there is a problem caused by your broadband ISP, the application, your PC, or something else? It can be difficult for experts, let alone average Internet users …

Putin-Dell slapdown at Davos — The Russian prime minister tells the Dell CEO: 'We don't need help. We are not invalids.' — DAVOS, Switzerland (Fortune) — Ever since Vladimir Putin rose to power in 2000, his political opponents and entire countries have learned to their cost that he has a tough, demeaning streak.

Some Things Need To Change — Yesterday as I was leaving the DLD Conference in Munich, Germany someone walked up to me and quite deliberately spat in my face. Before I even understood what was happening, he veered off into the crowd, just another dark head in a dark suit.

Apple vs. Palm: the in-depth analysis — Apple and Palm kicked a lot of dirt at each other last week — acting Apple CEO Tim Cook flatly told analysts that “We will not stand for people ripping off our IP” when asked specifically about competition like the Palm Pre, and Palm responded …

House fails to pass digital TV delay bill — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An effort to delay the February 17 deadline for a nationwide switch to digital television failed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday after Republicans blocked the move. — The legislation is backed …

Why AT&T loves the iPhone (again) — For much of last year, AT&T (T) Mobility's websites seemed to be promoting every cell phone in their arsenal except for the iPhone — as if the company wasn't sure the revenue coming in from iPhone users was worth the steep bounty it was paying Apple (AAPL) for each sale.

Danger online: Perils of revealing every intimate moment — Anything goes on the web. We find out why we share personal details online and explain our obsession with social networking — So Chelsy Davy announced the end of her five-year relationship with Prince Harry via Facebook alongside a cutesy icon of a broken red heart.

Sidekick LX 2009 — We got the above image in our inbox. danielle says she was taking a survey about smart phones on QuizPoints and was presented with this one. Here are the specs it lists in the photo: — Social Networking Suite of Apps — Facebook — MySpace w/ video upload

Congestion Management FAQs — In February, Cox will begin testing a new method of managing traffic on our high-speed Internet network in our Kansas and Arkansas markets. During the occasional times the network is congested, this new technology automatically ensures that all time-sensitive Internet traffic …

Share MP3s as tweets with Songly — If you're looking to share an MP3 with a friend, or with a bunch of other folks on Twitter, worth checking out is Songly. The service takes the URL of any MP3 that's hosted on the Web and will both shorten it for micropublishing tools like Twitter …

iDVD hung out to dry as Apple pushes movies online — One of the original pillars of Apple's iLife suite, iDVD, has increasingly been given the cold shoulder to the point where it is not even depicted on the retail package anymore. How much longer will the app stick around now that the company …

Sources: AT&T, Comcast may help RIAA foil piracy — CNET staff writer Marguerite Reardon co-authored this report. — AT&T and Comcast, two of the nation's largest Internet service providers, are expected to be among a group of ISPs that will cooperate with the music industry …

Acer smartphone launch confirmed … “Are you ready to join Acer's launch into the world of mobile communications?” — So asks an invite that's just dropped into Pocket-lint's inbox this morning, confirming rumours the company are to launch a smartphone. — Due to be unveiled on February 16 …

Autonomous Robots Invade Retail Warehouses — Next time you order a new pair of skinny jeans from Gap.com, you should know that you are helping welcome in the hive-mind robot overlords of retail. — Warehouses run by Gap, as well as Zappos and Staples now use autonomous robots to pluck products …

Revision3 Views Up 140% Despite Self-Imposed Standards — Online video studio Revision3 said today its program views are up 140 percent, with 46 million views in 2008 as compared to 19 million views in 2007. — Last year Revision3 reported it had delivered 25 million videos (and 103 million “clips").

DDoS attack boots Kyrgyzstan from net — Russian bears blamed — The central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan was effectively knocked offline for more than a week by a Russian cybermilitia that continues to flood the country's internet providers with crippling data attacks, a security expert said.

Find Images that Have a Certain Size — Most image search engines offers an option to filter the results by size, but you can only choose between small, medium and large images. Google Image Search has an undocumented parameter that lets you specify the exact dimension of the results:

Yahoo Quietly Shutters Yahoo Pets [grin] — With no notice Yahoo quietly started directing pets.yahoo.com users to a subsection of their women's vertical Shine. — [Excuse me while I have a David vs. Goliath moment.] — The demise of pets.yahoo.com comes as no surprise …

Nvidia Recruits Stanford Computing Guru — At a dinner Monday night in San Francisco, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang was having trouble containing himself about a new hire his chip company would soon be announcing. Now it can be told: William Dally, one of the really big thinkers in computer design …

Intel releases Linux-based Moblin 2 Alpha for Netbooks — The first alpha release of Intel's Linux-based Moblin 2 platform is now available for download. It's designed to work on Atom-based netbook devices and it offers fast boot times and a unique Internet connection manager.